Rosanes v
Anderssen, Breslau, 1863

Edward Winter

(2013)

Adolf Anderssen

From Fabrizio Zavatarelli (Milan, Italy):

‘Well-known classics can be surprisingly mysterious. A
particular case is the game between J. Rosanes and A.
Anderssen (Breslau, 1863), which seems to have appeared in
books before it was published in magazines:

The essential information came out in at least two stages.
As far as I know, the game’s first appearance is on pages
717-718 of Dufresne’s Theoretisch-praktisches Handbuch
des Schachspiels (Berlin, 1863) with no occasion mentioned
and “Mises” named as White:

“Rosanes” and “Breslau, 1863” were later additions, and the
first instance that I have found is on page 106 of J.G.
Schultz’s Undervisning i schackspelet (Stockholm,
1869).

Both “Rosanes” and the occasion also appear on page 495 of
Dufresne and Zukertort’s Grosses Schach-Handbuch,
(second edition, Berlin, 1873). I wonder whether the game is
also present in the first edition, which was published in 1863
with only Dufresne named as author, as listed by van der Linde
in volume two of his Geschichte und Litteratur des
Schachspiels (Berlin, 1874), page 23.

Can a more precise date for the game be found? Why was White
identified as “Mises” (probably Samuel Mieses) at first?
Today, can we be sure that Anderssen’s opponent was Rosanes?
Is there a documented explanation as to why the game appeared
in books but not in the DeutscheSchachzeitung
or the Neue Berliner Schachzeitung?’

(7913)

Jerry Spinrad (Nashville, TN, USA) mentions an earlier (i.e.
pre-1869) appearance of Rosanes’s name in connection with the
Anderssen game: the New York Albion
of 23 June 1866. The reference in note (a) ‘According to
Anderssen’s Analysis ...’ may be a significant clue.

Among the nineteenth-century books which identified White as
(Samuel) Mieses we were particularly interested to note Chess
Exemplified by William John Greenwell (London, 1890) because
of a comment on page 41:

So now, not only Rosanes and Mieses but a third name, Minckwitz.
The book referred to is Chess Openings, Ancient and Modern
by E. Freeborough and C.E. Ranken (London, 1889), and the relevant
page is shown below, courtesy of Michael Clapham (Ipswich,
England):

From the second edition onwards, Anderssen’s opponent was named
as Mieses. For example, below is page 180 of the fourth edition
(London, 1910):

(7919)

From Peter Anderberg (Harmstorf, Germany):

‘The first publication of Anderssen’s win was probably on
page 366 of Dufresne’s column in Ueber Land und Meer in
March
1863:

Anderssen himself contributed a section to Dufresne’s Anthologie
der
Schachaufgaben (published in 1864 according to the title
page, and with a preface dated September 1863) under the title
“Analytische Glossen zu verschiedenen Eröffnungen mit
Belegen aus wirklich gespielten Partieen” (pages 186-204).

On pages 197-199 Anderssen gave the score of the game in
question, but not his opponent’s name. The following comes
from the bottom of page 198:

This refers to another game, on page 193, where Anderssen
called his opponent “einen Matador des akademischen
Schachzirkels zu Breslau”. (The academic chess club was
mentioned on page 68 of the January 1861 Deutsche
Schachzeitung, where S. Mieses and Rosanes were named as
members of the board.)

The first appearance of Rosanes’s name in connection with
the game seems to be in G.R. Neumann’s Leitfaden für
Anfänger im Schachspiel. The book was published inBerlin in 1865 according to the title page but had already
been mentioned on page 304 of the Neue Berliner
Schachzeitung, October 1864. The score was given on pages
64-65 under the heading “Rosanes-Anderssen”.

Neumann confirmed this in the Neue Berliner
Schachzeitung, October 1865, page 319, with an explanation of
Dufresne’s mistake.